Rs 896 to Rs 2,415: This stock zoomed over 150% in one year; hit 52-week high today

Shares of Astral Limited surged 10 per cent to hit a new 52-week high of Rs 2,415 on BSE. The stock has been gaining for the last four trading sessions and has risen 14 per cent during the same period.

The large-cap stock has delivered more than 150 per cent return to its shareholders in the last 12 months. In the last one year, Astral Limited share price jumped from Rs 896 to Rs 2,415 mark - logging around 169.5 per cent return in this period.

An amount of Rs 5 lakh invested in this multibagger stock a year ago would have turned into Rs 13.47 lakh today. With a market capitalisation of more than Rs 47,000 crore, the share stands higher than 5 day, 10 day, 20 day, 50 day, 100 day, and 200-day moving averages.
 
"We like Astral in plastic pipes segment given its strong brand recall, extensive distribution network and healthy balance sheet," said IDBI Capital.
 
"Odisha plant commencement was delayed due to 2nd wave of Covid and is expected to start production by November 2021. As per management, the demand scenario of pipes and adhesives was affected in May and the first half of June. From last week of June onwards, both businesses have gained momentum and are seeing very encouraging sales numbers in both segments pipes and adhesives," added the brokerage house.
 
"We revise our revenue estimate upwards for FY23E considering capacity additions (in water tanks and valves) along with the expectation of accelerated growth in the adhesive segment," said ICICI Direct.
 
The brokerage house believes that EBITDA margin has peaked out in FY21 and the absence of low-cost inventory and restoration of operating costs such as advertisement expenses would result in a lower EBITDA margin in FY22E.
 
According to MarketsMojo, the company has a low Debt to Equity ratio (avg) at 0.05 times and has high management efficiency with a high ROE of 17.49%. It has declared positive results for the last 4 consecutive quarters and has high institutional holdings at 30.78%.
 
The technical trend has improved from Mildly Bullish on September 30, 2021, and has generated 10 per cent return since then. The stock is technically in a Bullish range now and multiple factors for the stock are Bullish like MACD, Bollinger Band, KST and OBV. However, it noted that the valuation is very expensive right now.
 
Recently, the CRISIL Ratings also upgraded its rating on the long-term bank facilities of Astral Limited to 'CRISIL AA/Stable' from 'CRISIL AA-/Positive' while reaffirmed its short-term rating and commercial paper at 'CRISIL A1+'.
 
The company reported a net profit of Rs 73.90 crore for the quarter ended June 2021 compared to a net profit of Rs 19.90 in the year-ago period. Revenue from operations grew 73 per cent to Rs 700.10 crore in the June-ended quarter against Rs 403.90 crore a year ago. The EPS has increased to Rs 3.68 in June 2021 from Rs 1.32 in June 2020.